I've already complained on Twitter but I'm coming here too. I'm so tired of the fatphobia that pervades fandom.
Being fat is treated as an abnormality in fandom, instead of a normal thing that people are or can become. Obviously this holds true in real life as well; this is just a small portion of the discrimination fat people face. Whenever it's mentioned a character happens to be even slightly overweight in a fic, it's treated as some sort of moral failing, like they've "let themselves go" and need to lose weight again to be fixed.
I'm just so exhausted by the idea of fatness being a bad thing that everybody seems to cling to. Everyone insists on drawing characters conventionally pretty, and even the idea of drawing a character fat makes the average artist blanch. I personally have gotten so many comments along the lines of "why would you make these characters fat and ugly" or "your f*tish is disgusting and disrespectful" when I'm just a fat person trying to depict fatness in a neutral/positive light. "But the character isn't supposed to be ugly!" First of all, ugliness isn't an indicator of moral failing, either. Secondly, the fact you equate fatness with ugliness is so, so telling. Fat people can be handsome and beautiful and cute. And even if they aren't, so what. Depict them anyway.
It's not hard. It's easy to mention casually in writing, just a single throwaway line. It's easy to learn to draw fat people, there's so many tutorials out there you can search up. Just... make an effort. Make fat people feel seen in a way that makes them comfortable, instead of cringing as their body type is treated once again like a joke or an indicator that they've fallen by the wayside. Stop dehumanizing fat people.
